


how you get the girl (platonically, more or less)

by fancyfanstuff



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emma Swan is a huge Taylor Swift stan, F/F, Post S3, but she won't admit it, i take no responsability whatsoever, s3 finale/4x01, sorta angst, sorta crack, sorta fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24525016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancyfanstuff/pseuds/fancyfanstuff
Summary: Emma has always turned to Taylor Swift songs for advice, so she can do so now, right? It's not like the lyrics aren't applicable to the situation of "I accidentally brought my best friend's soulmate's wife back from the past and now I need to repair my (very platonic) friendship with her"... Right?Or, the Swiftie one. Which started out as a crack fic but somehow got a lot angstier along the way. (Which is why I had to counteract with a fluff overload in the end.) (Hush, I dunno what happened.)
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 22
Kudos: 120





	how you get the girl (platonically, more or less)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey lovelies,  
> So, it's been a while, right, but don't despair. Back I am, with a brand-new crack fic. A few words of warning first tho:  
> 1\. If you aren't familiar with the Taylor Swift song How You Get The Girl, I strongly advise you to listen to it before reading. Otherwise parts of the story might not make sense. (At this point also, credit: title and inspiration taken from this song and pretty much nothing else, since my brain is a void these days.)  
> 2\. All occasions of fangirling in this fic are entirely mine. Everything else, unfortunately, isn't (or this is how episode 4/01 would have gone in canon too).  
> And that would be it! Enjoy reading and have a nice day!

Taylor Swift’s music has always been a steady companion in Emma’s adult life. She cannot even really say why, when, and how that obsession started. In fact, she never tires to point out, it isn’t even a real obsession. It’s not like she’s a stan, like Henry would put it, or even a regular fan. She simply enjoys the songs, okay, in a normal, sensible manner, and sometimes she cries a bit when she listens to them but hey, who doesn’t, right?

(Ruby doesn’t, apparently, but that just proves that Ruby is much less emphatic than everyone always claims.)

The fact remains that since Emma heard Fearless on the radio, the night she ran away from the homes for good, Swift has been her go-to artist for all things emotional. Sometimes, one just needs to feel understood, and if it’s by a twenty-something-year-old superstar and her guitar.

It worked out pretty well so far. Which is why, even now, with Regina hunkered down at her home, while her soulmate and his wife, whom Emma has brought back from the past, stroll around town looking like a fucking parship commercial, Emma automatically turns to her battered old CD player and puts on 1989. Although it hurts her heart, she skips the nine songs till _How You Get The Girl_.

Despite what Ruby might say (on late nights at the Rabbit Hole, when Emma is drunk enough to pull out her phone and stare at the blurry picture of Regina in her contacts), the situation between Emma and Regina is Not Like That. No romance, no True Love, no-okay-maybe-a-bit attraction, but that’s probably one-sided, which is fine, it’s not like Emma has a big gay crush on Regina and _anyway_ , it is Not Like That. (At which point Ruby tends to roll her eyes, which Emma tends to ignore.)

She’s sorry to have lost a friend, that’s all. She and Regina had grown so close during Operation Cockatoo, as Henry’s named the witch hunt, that Emma had become used to having Regina at her side, hearing her rich laughter, smelling her heady perfume, feeling the brush of her hand over Emma’s when they made magic. Now however, they are back to an almost curse-time level of hostility. Maybe worse, since Regina refuses to even speak to Emma.

A fact that Emma is determined to change. Heartbreak is fine, grief is important, placing the blame can well be cathartic. But Emma refuses to let their friendship get broken by one mistake. Without further hesitation, she presses play. (Swift lyrics are perfectly applicable to platonic relationships too, shut up Ruby.)

The player stutters and rattles in a way that reminds Emma of why exactly she’s saving for a new one, but then something clicks and the sound of Taylor’s voice fills the loft. Emma closes her eyes. And makes a list.

* * *

The next day, the sun shines brightly enough that Emma almost doesn’t follow through with her plan. She supposes that the rain in the song is for aesthetic purposes, and though that doesn’t make it vitally important for the success of her mission, she is sorta superstitious about modifying Swift’s recipe even in the slightest. Also, maybe, possibly, perhaps, she feels so nervous about confronting Regina that she is looking for excuses not to do it today. Or tomorrow, if the weather forecast is to be believed, or the day after, or…

Considering that Storybrooke is located in Maine, it sure is a dry town.

Emma decides to maybe pass under a few sprinklers on her way over to Mifflin Street, to achieve a similar effect. (Except she doesn’t, because she doesn’t want her other supplies to get wet.)

Next, she prints out a reasonably decent picture of a Charming family dinner at Granny’s and cuts off Henry’s and her parents’ faces. The snapshot that remains is not quite a kiss-on-cheek photo, but Emma’s pulling a face and Regina’s laughing at it, and she looks the happiest she has in a long time, so Emma hopes it will suffice. (Besides, Regina and Emma aren’t the kissy type of friends. They haven’t even managed hugging, and Emma’s too afraid of rejection to propose it, even though she’s been thinking about holding Regina’s body for a while now.)

(Somewhere in the back of her mind, Emma is fully aware that she doesn’t have to take Swift literally, and that The Talking Part is what really matters. But she’s trying very hard not to think about The Talking Part yet, and it can never hurt to be prepared. Or feel prepared. Which she does, when she grabs the photo, her phone and in-ears to listen to the song again on the way, and, in an impulse heureka, one of Mary Margaret’s countless potted plants, and heads out.)

* * *

Regina clearly has no idea how this is supposed to go, because when she opens the door, she welcomes Emma with a simple “Miss Swan” and then proceeds to look at her not like Emma’s insane but like she’s simply a nuisance. At least she opened the door at all, Emma forces herself to think, but it doesn’t quite help to clear the lump that has formed in her throat.

“Hey, Regina,” she says, and falls silent. The rolled-up picture feels suddenly cheap in her hands, and the echo of Swift’s voice in her ears seems callow and naive under Regina’s cold stare. It becomes painfully clear that Emma is no longer welcome on Regina’s front porch. Or in Regina’s life, for that matter. (Though there’s a minuscule flicker in those dark, dark eyes, a sort of almost hopeful spark that somehow gives Emma the courage to speak.)

“It’s been a long week. Since...” She hesitates. “I… I’ve come to tell you that I won’t give up on you. This.” A breath. “Us.”

Regina musters a sneer, which is somehow nowhere near as scathing as it used to be. “Haven’t you heard. There is no us. There is only a plural you, the saviour and the town, and a singular me, the Evil Queen, doomed to solitude.”

She sounds bitter and self-deprecating, not at all like the self-confident woman Emma ~~fell in love with~~ likes. She struggles to find words.

“I know I hurt you,” she finally says, and feels like the biggest asshole on earth, “But I want to help - “

Regina cuts her off right there and then, her voice trembling with fury (it is much better than sadness, so Emma takes it gladly): “I don’t need your _help_ , saviour.”

“So what do you need?” This, Emma thinks, might no longer be a Taylor Swift-appropriate situation. Furtively, she crumples the paper pic in her hand and puts it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Please, Regina,” she pleads quietly, “Let me amend my error.”

As quick as Regina’s anger had come, it seems to evaporate again. She exhales a long long breath, and when she looks up at Emma again, her eyes are a tired void. “Miss Swan…”

“Emma.”

“Emma.” Regina raises a hand to her forehead, hovering, as if she forgot what she wanted to do with it on her way up. After a few confused seconds, she lets it sink to her side again. Emma hesitates, but then she reaches out, gingerly covering Regina’s fingers with her own.

“If you need more time, alone time, I can wait,” she whispers. “Just… know that I’m there for you to call or talk to, if you need anything.”

Regina breathes a wet, hiccup-y sob, and Emma realises she’s made her friend cry. Again.

And suddenly, everything is so easy. Emma hardly has to draw her in, when Regina already stumbles forward, all but crashing into Emma’s arms and sending the potted plant flying. Her face buries into the nook of Emma’s neck, all flushed and teary, while Emma strokes somewhat awkwardly over her shaking back. (All the times she’d been imagining their first hug, she had pictured Regina smiling that special Henry-only-except-sometimes-Emma-smile afterwards, cupping her cheek and saying something like “why have we never done this before?”, before dropping her eyes to Emma’s lips and yeah, maybe that’s why they are not the hugging type. Either way, Emma’d never thought Regina would be crying, least of all about something Emma herself had said. She kind of feels awful, yet she also feels good about comforting Regina and basically it is all A Mess.)

“I hate you,” Regina finally brings out after a minute or so, the sound muffled against Emma’s shoulder. It’s such a bizarre situation that Emma would have chuckled, were it happening to anyone else. As it is, her reply nearly gets stuck in her throat.

“Okay.”

Regina sniffs, then slowly steps away from Emma. Her gaze is focused on somewhere near Emma’s lapel, a spot where Emma imagines her blouse is dark with tears.

“I have every right to hate you,” she says, almost defensively. “You destroyed my happy ending, _again_ , might I add. The last time someone did that…”

“You cursed a whole realm and froze time for twenty-eight years?”

Regina gifts her with a small smile, but she still looks so deeply unhappy that it breaks Emma’s heart. “The problem,” she says so quietly Emma has to angle in to hear her, ”is that I understand why you did it. Why you had to do it. I…” She looks up at Emma, eyes deep and dark behind teary lashes. “I understand why you had to save her life. I just wish it wouldn’t have destroyed mine.”

And maybe the renewed trust in Regina’s gaze makes Emma a bit bolder than she planned to be, but next thing she knows, she has reached out to brush a strand of Regina’s hair from her forehead. The skin beneath is warm, and Emma lets her fingers trail over it for the briefest moment before she withdraws her hand. “Did it though?” She asks (and maybe she relishes Regina’s startled expression a tad too much, but she just can’t help it, okay, not when it’s a good kind of startled, almost a wow-please-do-this-again kind of startled. Except Regina obviously wouldn’t be caught dead saying that.) “Did it destroy your life?”

“Admittedly, that would be a very anti-feminist notion - “ Regina begins, the mere fact that she’s falling back into her sophisticated way of speaking a sign that she can’t be as miserable any more. Emma grins, which prompts a very normal-Regina-like eye-roll.

“No,” she finally concedes, “maybe it didn’t destroy my _life_. But it did cause some very unpleasant thoughts to emerge again…”

“Did?”

Another eye-roll (Emma’s back in her game, it seems). “I’ve come to realise that it may be foolish to give up on all romance just yet.”  
  
“Foolish indeed,” Emma smirks, which earns her an honest-to-god blush. (It is breathtaking. Emma is starting to feel like maybe Ruby might be on to something there, with Swift lyrics and unplatonic implications.)

“Didn’t you bring a flower or so?” Regina asks, after they’ve stood around in silence for a while. She really must be better, because although her voice is a bit husky from crying still, she nails her usual bossy tone perfectly.

Emma almost laughs. “I did. It should be somewhere on the lawn I suppose, since you knocked it out of my hands with your attack hug.”

“It was _not_ an attack hug. You just have bad reflexes.”

“Oh yeah? Like the one that made me come over here in the first place?”

Regina scoffs but manages to make it sound affectionate somehow. “Yes, however did you get the notion that might be a good idea? I was considering fireballs, but Henry would never have forgiven me.”

“Oh, I knew it would work.” Emma grins and taps the phone in her back pocket. “Taylor Swift magic.”

Regina’s brow wrinkles. “Taylor who?”

(Emma refrains from turning away from her right there and then. But only barely and only because Regina is smiling her special Henry-only-except-sometimes-Emma-smile, right before her eyes drop to Emma’s lips.)


End file.
